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Radar Festival has said it was forced to remove Bob Vylan from the line-up following their controversial Glastonbury 2025 performance.
The punk-rap duo had been scheduled to headline the Manchester event this Saturday (July 5). However, they were recently axed from the bill after leading chants of “death to the IDF [Israel Defence Forces]” and “free Palestine” during their slot on Glasto’s West Holts Stage last Saturday (June 28).
“We are the violent punks, because sometimes you gotta get your message across with violence because that is the only language some people speak, unfortunately,” frontman Bobby Vylan told the crowd.
The band also called out the BBC as well as the US and UK governments, and more while on stage.
Yesterday (July 2), Radar shared a brief statement to confirm that Bob Vylan would no longer be performing. It simply read: “Bob Vylan will not be appearing at RADAR Festival this weekend.”
In response, Bob Vylan wrote on social media: “Silence is not an option. We will be fine, the people of Palestine are hurting. Manchester, we will be back.”
Now, during an interview on the Two Promoters One Pod podcast, Radar organiser Catherine Jackson-Smith has revealed that the festival did not want to cancel Bob Vylan’s headline set.
The event runs between July 4-6 at Manchester’s O2 Victoria Warehouse, and is completely independent. However, the host venue is privately co-owned by AMG and Live Nation.
“It started to become frustrating because there were constant conversations above our collective heads, as a venue and ourselves, about whether Bob Vylan could play,” Jackson-Smith explained (via Far Out).
She went to claim that she had asked to be part of the conversation, and said it was confusing that they weren’t involving Radar’s organisers if there were “public order” issues.
Jackson-Smith told the podcast that the option was “put very bluntly” to her, adding: “We could continue with Bob Vylan as our headliner. If we continued, we wouldn’t have the festival happening on Saturday.”
As a result, the other acts heading to Radar on Saturday would have been in jeopardy, and cancelling the day’s programme would have caused a precarious situation for organisers.
“There was not an option for Bob Vylan to step on stage on Saturday; that became apparent at the beginning of the week,” Jackson-Smith insisted. She explained that she had to speak to Bob Vylan about removing them from the line-up, despite it not being her decision.
“[It was] categorically, one of the most horrendous professional discussions I have ever had,” Jackson-Smith continued. “I cannot express clearly enough that I wanted Bob Vylan to perform at our festival.”
Elaborating on the discussion, she explained that Bob Vylan’s agency – which dropped the duo in light of the Glasto controversy – passed on their details to her. “It was horrific as a conversation,” she said. “Bob Vylan knew that we didn’t want to pull them.”
Jackson-Smith went on: “The headlines will be ‘Radar Festival pulled Bob Vylan’. There isn’t room journalistically for the nuance of what is happening to be put into a headline that will go out anywhere, so it won’t.
“It gives the impression that – not that we are part of the establishment, but I can’t think of a more eloquent way of putting it. That we have joined the course for XYZ consequence, and we haven’t.”
Jackson-Smith claimed that Radar was instructed on how to announce that Bob Vylan would no longer be performing. She said she was only allowed to write a brief statement on social media.
Radar Festival has not yet announced a replacement headliner for Saturday night.
As well as being dropped by their agency, Bob Vylan have had their US visas revoked and are now under criminal investigation due to their remarks at Glastonbury 2025.
Glastonbury organisers also issued a statement, saying it was “appalled” by the band’s “death to the IDF” chants: “Their chants very much crossed a line and we are urgently reminding everyone involved in the production of the Festival that there is no place at Glastonbury for anti-Semitism, hate speech or incitement to violence.”
Further backlash came from Health Secretary Wes Streeting and Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy – the latter of whom said the BBC’s decision to broadcast the performance showed “a problem of leadership”. Meanwhile, US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau described Bob Vylan’s actions as a “hateful tirade”.
When speaking out about their Glasto set, Bob Vylan reiterated that they were “not for the death of Jews or Arabs or any other race or group” – but wanted the “dismantling of a violent military machine”. They also said it was vital to “teach our children to speak up for the change they want”.
Bob Vylan have also been dropped from the line-up for the Kave Festival in France. Elsewhere, the owners of a music venue in Cologne have taken them off the bill for a Gogol Bordello show scheduled for September.
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